Cultured
by Missie2
Summary: Simply put, pearls have no culture.


**Cultured**

A sequel of sorts but not a direct sequel to _Freedom To and Freedom From._

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 _..._

Loneliness is like starvation: you don't realize how hungry you are until you begin to eat.

- _Faithless,_ Joyce Carol Oates

 _Cultured isn't the term we would use, we refer to the process as germinating. To call them cultured pearls would be to suggest they are capable of forming social bonds, which of course they are not._

To begin with, it wasn't a single pearl that had an epiphany as one might think. It was a gradual process built up over several series of individual pearls that passed it on to each other. No pearl knows if it began with the first series or if it happened further down the line, as time and memory for pearls are experienced differently than other gems.

 _Even the crudest of gems, the lowest caste gems, are capable of forming societies at the most basic level and therefore have their own cultural pastimes, language quirks and customs. Pearls do not communicate with each other, and therefore do not have this capacity._

The first hurdle to overcome was to develop a way to communicate without speaking aloud, as pearls are unable to talk to each other without direct orders (and what gem would ever order a pearl to speak to another?) A language is built up slowly over gestures. Minute flickers of movement to catch the watchful blank gaze of a fellow pearls speak volumes.

For pearls that were forbidden to move at all, a small dip of the eyelids was a greeting. A barely raised finger was an acknowledgment. Adjusting the position of a foot less than a millimetre to the right was gratitude. A small exhaled breath was an expression of sadness. Such tiny movements were largely unseen by the owners and therefore not breaking the rules, and a single gesture from one pearl to another was stored in the memory for as long as that pearl was intact.

 _Even if they could communicate with each other, it is doubtful that they would have anything interesting to talk about._

The gesture-based language directly lead to the next step in the chain. Pearls that communicated with each other found ways to get close to one another and discovered an unusual anomaly.

Because their gems and by extension their mass was organic-based, small particles could come loose and be passed through to other pearls, added to their mass. It was a gigantic leap forward for pearl culture, especially as they discovered that the particles could hold shreds of memory.

Memory was a tricky thing for a pearl; the concept of the **nothing** was an abstract one, a great othering sensation that disrupted their sense of self constantly and did not allow for lucidity. Memories, good or bad, were buried deep in the pearl's being to keep them free of the **nothing's** tendency to wipe out everything in its path. Their memory stores ran deep and took up most of their accumulated mass, resulting in a small, spindly frame manifested on the outside.

Communication with other gems were a stream of obeyed commands without question mixed with parroted statements; anything more could bring on the **nothing.** But passing on particles of their being to another pearl did not call forth the **nothing,** and thoughts could be hidden in those particles.

 _Their primary function is to serve the needs of the gem that legally owns it. Empathy is not a requirement, so it has not been a priority for us to implant in them even if we could._

Pearl language, without the benefit of nuance or freedom of expression, was very simple. A series of statements conveyed in different ways, universal to all pearls.

 **You are doing well** was the most common. There were over a hundred different ways to convey this.

 **Where are you going, and where have you been?** had seventy-three varieties, different in each district and for the functions of individual pearls. The answer was usually coded into a particle and passed to be experienced by the pearl that asked.

 **I am so sorry** was a universal gesture of sympathy portrayed in three ways depending on the circumstances but used rarely, as for all of their fragile sense of self the average pearl was a vaguely proud creature.

A pearl that was **not doing well** and knew it was going to be processed soon traditionally wrapped up its good memories in surface particles and passed them to other pearls to keep on their behalf. A single pearl could hold over ten thousand cycles of memory. To be asked to hold another pearl's memories was the highest honour that could be bestowed on them.

...

After the procedure, when everything seemed to be simultaneously closer and further away, when the lack of the **nothing** was scarier than waiting for the **nothing** to hit, and when slipping back into the mass-memory habit of schooled blankness was something she actually had to _think about,_ Pearl's first clear thought was to take the details of the procedure and the memories leading up to them to copy and implant into mass surface particles.

It wasn't even a question. The other pearls _needed_ to know about this.

She had seen the braided pearl even before she stepped onto the tracer and reached out to her.

 **Would you take my memory for me** she said with a slow half-blink.

 **I would be honoured** the braided pearl replied with a slight dip of her head to the left as the doors opened.

The braided pearl sat beside her and lay down her hand to recieve the memory. Pearl watched her eyes as the particle swept onto her mass and the memory drifted from one to the other.

The effect was instantaneous; the braided pearl's pupils expanded and shrank to pinpricks, her fingers dug into the seat, her mouth fell slightly open and she gasped for breath. To an ordinary gem nothing looked amiss; to a fellow pearl it looked like she was having a mass-wide spasm. The other pearls in the tracer carriage watched out of the corner of their eyes and called out.

 **She is not doing well** they called out with tiny movements of their fingers.

 **She will be well** Pearl called back with flickering eyelids.

With the knowledge safely absorbed, the braided pearl settled and steeled herself.

 **I will tell them** she promised. **Thank you.**

Leaving the train, she brushed against three pearls and transferred the copied memory to them. They all reacted the way she had, right under the nose of their oblivious owners.

Within a single cycle, the memory of the procedure had spread to three-quarters of the pearl population.


End file.
